Sleep is for Losers
by BlueStrawberryIII
Summary: Zach is participating in a Mario Kart tournament and Ryan is determined to risk life, limb, and sleep loss to be supportive.
1. Chapter 1

It was getting late. Ryan had finished a paper for one of his classes half an hour ago, but he hadn't gotten up the strength to drag himself to bed until the clock reached 2:00 in the morning. Not even the thought of Zach in the bed could pull him off his ass and out of his chair.

But, as he walked out into the living room, he realized that Zach wasn't even in bed. He was perched on one of the couch's arms, tapping away at a Wii remote.

"Hey," Ryan said sleepily, draping himself over his boyfriend, careful not to jostle him too much in case there was money riding on…whatever this was. "This doesn't look like Halo."

"It's not."

"What is it?"

"Mario Kart."

That name seemed familiar. Ryan thought that maybe he had seen Brooke's little brothers playing it at one point. They may have even convinced him to play a round; Ryan couldn't remember all that well, especially when he was as tired as he was then. "Is this a tournament?"

"Nah." Zach slammed on a couple more buttons and jerked his arms to the left, causing Ryan to start in shock. "Sorry about that."

Ryan 'mm'ed in response and patted the shoulder that his face wasn't already resting on in a reassuring fashion. "So, if you're not getting money, why are you up at such an ungodly hour?"

"I could ask you the same thing. I thought this was a simple prompt, not a novel."

"It was harder than I thought."

"You could have asked for help if you needed it."

"I didn't want to wake you up."

"I was never asleep."

"Which leads me back to my question: why?"

Zach knocked another racer off the track and let out a quiet, victorious hiss of air. "Well, this round isn't for money, but there's some big money on a match next week. I'm a bit rusty on Mario Kart, so I figured I'd practice a little. It'd be humiliating to get curb-stomped by a bunch of high schoolers."

"Curb-stomped?" Ryan felt like he should know what that meant, but his brain was working at less than fifty percent of its normal functions at the moment.

"Utterly annihilated." He enunciated every syllable with slow deliberation, thankfully picking up on Ryan's current state of mind.

"Ah." Ryan stared at the screen, watching the colors flash by and blur together. "Can I play a round?"

Zach shot a look at him like he'd asked if he could fly. "Shouldn't you be getting to sleep? You look…bad. To say the least."

Ryan waved him off. "I'm fine. Hand me a controller. I'll wipe the floor with you." It would have sounded almost threatening, if he hadn't slurred most of the words.

Zach finished the race he was working on in first and got up to grab a Wii remote from his basket of controllers. Ryan didn't know how he ever found anything in it, with all the wires and over five different styles of controllers that all looked the same to Ryan's eyes.

When the Wii remote was in his hand, Ryan asked, "So how do I use this?"

Zach gave him a rundown of the important buttons—all three of them—and chose their race course. "I'll start you on Mario Circuit, since I don't think you're ready for Rainbow Road right now."

Ryan went for a nod that ended up as him bowing down his head and using all of his willpower and the first ten seconds of the race to pull it back up. "How are you already in first place?" he asked Zach, a bit disappointed that he was in last, but not surprised. Ryan didn't honestly think he had the energy to be surprised this late at night.

"Just luck I guess," said Zach gently, though they both knew that luck had nothing to do with it. Ryan stared wide-eye at the screen, both to keep his eyes from closing for good and to try to keep track of everything that was happening. But it didn't do much good. The bright reds and greens and yellows of the virtual race track all blended into an incomprehensible blur and soon Ryan was crashing into every wall he could, and even some walls that Zach thought shouldn't be possible.

When the race ended, with Zach in first and Ryan a lap behind eleventh place, Zach put down his controller and turned off the Wii. "Okay, Ryan. You got a round of Kart. Now you really need to go to sleep, okay?"

No response.

"Ryan?" Zach turned around to face his boyfriend on the couch. He was smushed up against his hand at an awkward angle, the Wii remote dangling forlornly from his wrist. Zach smiled and moved over to pick Ryan up. He slipped his arms underneath him, one under his neck and the other under his knees. Zach lifted up and then stopped. Ryan was heavier than he anticipated. "Nope," he said to himself. "Time for Plan B."

He pulled out some spare blankets from the hall closet and draped them over Ryan, gently taking the Wii remote and placing it back in the controller basket. "Looks like you're back to sleeping on the couch, love."


	2. Chapter 2

The night of the competition, Zach was gathering his stuff: lucky remote, lucky shirt, energy drinks, power bars, everything he would need for a night in front of the TV.

Ryan plopped down on the couch next to him. "How much money is this again?"

"A thousand."

Ryan whistled. "That's a lot."

"It is. And it goes until two in the morning. Are you sure you want to stay up with me? I swear I won't mind if you go to bed."

"Not a chance." Ryan pulled a blanket from the back of the couch and snuggled in. "I'm gonna be your personal cheerleader until you win."

"That confident, are we?" He checked his watch and flipped on the Wii.

"I believe in my man." Ryan leaned over and kissed Zach on the lips. "I'd say 'good luck,' but you don't need it."

"I'll take it anyways." He leaned back on the arm of the couch, legs crossed underneath him as the Mario Kart theme played. For some reason, Zach always seemed more at ease on the arms or back of the couch. He was catlike in that way. Ryan leaned against the arm, his cheek brushing up against Zach's thigh.

The first and second races went off without a hitch, but Bowser's Castle hit Zach hard. A blue shell slammed him into lava, another racer bumped him underneath a Whomp. And then a lava spout. And a wall. And then some more lava. "Rosalina's out for your blood," Ryan observed. It was true. Everywhere Zach was, Rosalina showed up.

"I don't blame her." Zach shoved Luigi into a pit and moved up to seventh place. "She's been second place for the past two rounds."

"Well, she's not anymore." Ryan looked at the placing of the racers: Rosalina was in first.

"Yeah, that's a problem." Zach jerked his arms to make a sharp turn, and instead got bunted by Bowser into even more lava. "Ugh. Damn this place and its stupid damn lava pits."

Zach's character got pulled out of the lava and dumped back onto the track in eleventh place. When Ryan looked up at Zach, he saw a frightening intensity in his boyfriend's eyes. His jaw was tightening and loosening and he was practically glaring at the screen. "Do you think you can get back first?" Ryan asked.

"Not this round. But if I can get a few more places up…" He tapped a few buttons and glided past Bowser, into the field of lava spouts. Tenth place. All of the other racers in front of him had passed the finish line already. All except Mario.

Zach used his last speed boost, gaining on Mario and slamming into the edge of his car. Mario spun out into a lava spout and Zach flew past the finish line.

"You did it!" Ryan exclaimed, grinning madly.

"Now all I have to do is… Let's see, I've got 48 points; Rosalina's got 39…" He counted on his fingers for a bit, then continued. "If I get first and Rosalina gets fourth, we should be fine."

"How're you gonna manage that?"

He smiled down at me and stole a kiss. "With a little luck."

* * *

Zach started off the last race, the one on Rainbow Road, by stalling. "What are you doing?" Ryan asked, incredulous. "All of the other players are passing you!"

"It's alright, babe. I've got a plan." He took off as soon as the last racer passed him. Oddly, he made sure not to pass them until he got an item. "Oh, hell yes!"

It was a blue shell with white spikes. "What does that do?"

"It's a Blue Shell, something I can only get when I'm way behind. It hits whoever's in first, which is currently Rosalina." He smirked and sent it out. "Next, I need a Bullet Bill. With everyone as close together as they are now, it should carry me all the way to the front." He ran into another item block and Ryan held his breath, watching item after item scroll past until finally it landed on what looked like an angry cylinder.

"Is that it?" he asked, leaning forward.

"It sure as hell is!" The character on-screen was replaced with the angry cylinder and shot past all of the other characters, just as Zach had said it would. It even ran into Rosalina for good measure. "Keep an eye on her, okay?" Zach asked, taking a swig of Monster before making a hard turn. "I need to focus on not falling off, but tell me if she passes fourth."

"She just did."

"Are you kidding?"

"I'm not."

Zach looked up at his item: a red shell. "Shit, son, we're gonna end this right now." He took his finger off the gas button and waited as Toad, Waluigi, and Baby Peach passed him. As soon as Rosalina showed up on his screen, he threw the red shell and took off, watching as she spun out while he passed.

Ryan frowned. "Are we sure this is sporting behavior?"

"Normally? No." Ryan watched as Zach passed the rest of the racers, one by one. "But, considering she did the exact same thing last round, I think it's alright. I don't plan on needing to do it again anyways." He was right. That shell had sent Rosalina back to tenth place, and she stayed that way for the rest of the race. As for Zach, he stayed half a lap ahead of everyone else for the rest of the race, save for a small incident with a Blue Shell on lap two. When Zach crossed the finish line, Ryan jumped onto Zach, bringing both of them to the floor. The blanket fluttered down next to Ryan like a big red cape.

"You did it, babe!"

Zach laughed and pulled Ryan close to him. "Couldn't have done it without my personal cheerleader."

"Yeah, right." Ryan yawned, his lack of sleep just now catching up to him. "You had this in the bag, Zach."

Zach yawned too, then lightly smacked Ryan on the shoulder. "Dangit, man, now you're making me tired, too!" Ryan knew he was trying to sound mad, but it came out as peacefully sleepy instead.

"We should probably go to bed, then," Ryan said, not making any moves to get up.

"I don't wanna move, though."

"Me neither."

Zach sighed, moving Ryan off of him and to his right. "Wanna just stay here?" he asked, already curling around the other man.

Ryan hummed sleepily and smiled, nuzzling into Zach's warm chest and pulling his blanket over the both of them. "…that'd be nice."


End file.
